There are many applications where indicia-bearing stickers are placed on receiving surfaces for display. The stickers include a strong adhesive wherein the sticker is, more or less, permanently bonded to the receiving surface.
For example, vehicle window stickers are often required to be applied to car windows such as a car windshield. These vehicle window stickers can include park registration stickers, parking lot stickers and vehicle registration stickers. Other types of vehicle window stickers include stickers displaying emissions data and insurance data, stickers displaying support for police and stickers displaying affiliation with a school, sport team or charity.
These vehicle windshield stickers have indicia-bearing print thereon and a layer of adhesive over the indicia. The stickers are adhered to the inside of the vehicle windshield so they can be viewed from the outside of the vehicle through the glass or plastic windshield. The adhesive typically used on windshield stickers forms a strong bond with the window glass. Consequently, once the sticker is adhered to the windshield, it is extremely difficult to remove the sticker.
In certain instances, it is desirable to remove the sticker from the windshield. For example, park registration stickers and vehicle registration stickers normally expire annually, and a new sticker must be purchased and applied to the windshield. Many car owners prefer to remove the expired vehicle registration before replacing it with the current year's vehicle registration to prevent blind spots created by leaving old stickers on the windshield. The strong adhesive used on the vehicle registrations makes it almost impossible to remove the sticker without either mutilating or destroying the sticker. Consequently, simply trying to peel the sticker off of the windshield breaks the sticker into small pieces. One may use a razor blade to shave the sticker from the windshield. However, this usually causes a bending or possible breaking of the razor blade causing possible injury to one's fingers. In addition, the razor blade frays the sticker into small shavings that fall onto the dashboard, into the air vent and onto car floor making for difficult clean-up. Furthermore, if the sticker is placed at a lowermost position on the windshield, access by one's fingers to the sticker is limited because of the angle between the windshield and dashboard.
Invariably, even when using a razor blade, some of the sticker adhesive remains on the windshield. One must then use a solvent to clean the remaining adhesive from the windshield.
In certain instances, it is desirable to remove a windshield sticker from one vehicle and transfer it to another vehicle. For example, one who owns multiple cars may transfer an affiliation or parking garage sticker from one car to another car. Windshield stickers may also need to be transferred when a car is sold. The strong adhesive used on the stickers makes this removal almost impossible without mutilating or destroying the stickers.
In all, the process of removing vehicle registrations and other vehicle windshield stickers from windshields is sloppy, very time consuming and frustrating to vehicle owners.
Like vehicle windshield stickers, trying to remove conventional stickers adhered directly onto a receiving surface is also frustrating. When trying to peel the sticker from the surface, the sticker often tears into small pieces. In addition, adhesive residue often remains on the receiving surface requiring additional cleaning.
Also, the general effects of temperature, sunlight, and humidity have been found to affect the film intermediary and the sticker assembly. An increase in average global temperatures can also have an affect. It is difficult to easily predict the effects of such conditions without focused testing. With average summer temperatures reaching historic peak levels, for example, prior film intermediaries could approach the limit of their stability. A break down of film stability can lead to the film overheating, which can cause the windshield sticker to potentially shrink, wrinkle, or curl. This change in stability combined with the heated up adhesive can cause the windshield sticker to peel off the film, or cause the entire sticker assembly to fall off the windshield. Peripheral edges of the sticker assembly including at the corners thereof can also begin to curl and peel away from the windshield over time, which is undesirable. Considerable testing in heat, sunlight, and humidity simulation chamber tests have been conducted to determine a film intermediary having enhanced performance over previous film intermediaries.
Thus, while certain film intermediaries according to the prior art provide a number of advantageous features, they nevertheless have certain limitations. The present invention seeks to overcome certain of these limitations and other drawbacks of the prior art, and to provide new features not heretofore available.